Podcast: Interview with Get Your Hands Off My Dogcast

Jamie: We review… well, review is a strong word. We talk about dog movies.

Alisdair: Movies that prominently feature a dog. We do a different film each week, semi-review it. Sometimes we just talk nonsense.

What made you decide to start the podcast?

Jamie: We were just kind of wanting to do a podcast. We’re fans of this New Zealand podcast called The Worst Idea Of All Time. So we were like, “we should do a podcast, that would be a fun thing,” just to do something. Then I think Alisdair came up with the idea of doing dog movies.

Oliver: It was just something to structure our hangouts, really. We used to write scripts with each other when we met up, but then we thought maybe a podcast because we all liked The Worst Idea Of All Time. We weren’t sure about the topic, just the format of talking about something each week that forces us to meet up fairly regularly.

If you had to recommend a dog related movie, which would it be?

Jamie: I’m a big fan of a movie calledTurner & Hooch. It’s got Tom Hanks in it, I’m a big Tom Hanks fan. It’s probably the most adult of the dog movies — we’ve found that most are family films but this one’s kind of like a straight comedy.

Oliver: But there is also genuine emotion, you know, like the relationship being formed between Tom Hanks and this dog. I won’t spoil the end but there’s some pretty traumatic stuff that happens and it’s genuinely dramatic. In most of the films the final act is pretty disappointing because we don’t care about the characters, but this dog, it’s got a real big heart… but he makes a lot of mess!

Alisdair: That’s definitely the best one we’ve seen. If I was going to recommend a dog movie I’d probably recommend Foodfight! because I want people to suffer.

Jamie: To be honest, if I had to recommend one it’d probably be Marley & Me because it’s the most general, audience-pleasing one.

Alisdair: I don’t like that one.

Jamie: I mean, I think we all have problems with it…

How do you go about making the podcast?

Jamie: So I just have a USB microphone that I bought off the internet and we gather around in Alisdair’s flat and watch the movie together, then just chuck in the microphone.

Oliver: And immediately record after watching the film because we forget it pretty much immediately.

What do you like about podcasts as a medium?

Jamie: I like the fact that you can do other things while you’re listening. When I’m working on a project or something, because I’m a design student, I like to have a podcast going as I do it.

Alisdair: I think it’s definitely a convenient way to get information or humour or entertainment without having to sit down.

Oliver: And it gives people from other countries the opportunity to hear our nonsense that was previously confined mostly to us, but now people from America and the UK are downloading. I don’t know what their doing with their lives, but yeah.

Jamie: We have one constant listener in Ashburn, Virginia.

Are there any future plans for Get Your Hands Off My Dogcast?

Alisdair: Eventually, of course, we’d like to sell out and just make it a cash cow. How realistic that is, I don’t know.

Jamie: It’s really just fun to do.

Alisdair: Yeah, we’ll probably just continue until we get bored of it, or until we run out of dog movies, whichever comes first.

Anything else you want to say to Salient readers?

Jamie: Check us out! If you like dog movies.

Alisdair: Or if you don’t.

Oliver: Or if you like dogs.

Alisdair: Or again, if you don’t.

Get Your Hands Off My Dogcast is available on iTunes or through their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/dogcasts/.

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